


I’ll Leave with Every Piece of You

by zinke



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-06
Updated: 2011-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:39:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinke/pseuds/zinke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deep down, Helen has always known John to be her one true weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll Leave with Every Piece of You

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, gigantic and very heartfelt thanks go to gabolange who has stuck with me on this fic since it was nothing more than a drabble – and not a very good one at that. This fic literally would not be here if it wasn’t for her. Thanks also go, as always, to caz963 for her help with the grammar and the smutty bits. This story contains spoilers through and takes place shortly after the events of the season two episode ‘Haunted’.

Helen couldn’t say what it was exactly that had drawn her to the parapet of the north tower after supper. She’d been feeling increasingly restless all day, ever since a near miss on what should have been a routine mission in Old City had landed Henry in the infirmary with a mild concussion and dislocated shoulder. Hours later, Helen could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and none of her usual remedies – work, Trollope, a strong, hot cup of Earl Grey – had soothed her frayed, tired nerves. Ultimately, she’d been forced to flee the quiet comfort of her rooms and had taken to roaming the dimly lit corridors, until eventually she’d found herself here.

How John has managed to do the same is somewhat less clear. As is her reaction to the unexpected intrusion.

There’d been a time not so long ago when an unannounced visit from John Druitt would have had Helen reaching for her gun without a second thought. But those days had come to an end the moment John put a fist through Nikola’s gut in Rome. Certainly not the most romantic of gestures by any conventional standard, but it had been enough to make Helen start to question the assumptions she’d held about him for close to a century.

Deep down, Helen has always known John to be her one true weakness. He presented an obvious physical threat, yes; but that danger had always seemed somehow secondary to the emotional damage he might inflict. That was why she’d taken every conceivable step to erase all traces of John from her life. The EM shield, the lies she’d told Ashley about who he was and what he’d once meant to her; every defense had been put into place fueled by the necessary belief that the man she’d once fallen in love with was gone, and the ruthless killer he’d become was all he would ever be.

It was an assumption that had served her well over the years – until John had inexplicably saved her life, an act that had contradicted every belief Helen had come to hold about him over the past eighty years. He’d asked for nothing in return, made no apologies nor begged her forgiveness for any of his past transgressions. Instead with a willing Ashley by his side, he’d simply said his goodbyes, pausing to look on Helen with a hauntingly familiar affection before giving a courtly bow and disappearing in a flash of static electricity.

Helen had done her best to dismiss John’s actions as an aberration, a probable means to some dark end she had yet to reason out. But try as she might to regain her earlier conviction, the damage had already been done. Her rescue from Nikola and his mindless minions could never make up for the lives John had taken over the years. But his apparent altruism _had_ opened her mind to a possibility she’d spent the past century steadfastly refusing to consider: that there was more to John’s affliction that she’d led herself to believe.

The rest, she supposes, had only been a matter of time.

In the wake of Ashley’s death Helen found that, while she certainly couldn’t forget what John was capable of, for a time she had cause to overlook and even appreciate it. Rather than indulge in her own desire to see those responsible suffer, she’d let Nikola and John do so in her stead. Helen had chosen to look the other way as they’d made use of their particular, bloody talents, ignoring the small thrill she’d feel each time John would return to the Sanctuary unannounced, his hands stained crimson and a predatory smile thinning his lips.

It wasn’t until much later, once the grief and anger had begun to recede, that Helen realized just how treacherous her complicity in John’s murderous vendetta against the Cabal had been. With every life extinguished, the fragile truce between them had grown into something deeper, even as the as-yet unrecognized creature within John had taken an increasingly greater hold on his soul.

Against all reason, Helen had let John back in – though it had taken him killing an innocent under her own roof for her to realize just how far. What she hadn’t been able to fathom, even as she’d pressed the defibrillator paddles to his motionless chest, was how she could have ever allowed something like this to happen.

It was only after John had willingly given himself back to the monster that had tortured him for nearly a century so that he might save them – save _her_ – that Helen had found her answer.

For all her precautions and meticulously cultivated layers of control, despite the horrific, bloody acts he’s committed over the years, the rage and the cruelty Helen has seen in him time and time again, she still loves him. And there’s a small part of her that can’t help but hate him for it.

To her eye, John looks no worse for his precipitous and desperate departure weeks earlier. But instead of the relief she’d expected to feel, his presence here only serves to infuriate her. Before her conscious mind has a chance to process what’s happening, they’re standing toe-to-toe and the hand she’d initially raised to strike him is instead curling around the base of his neck and pulling his mouth to hers.

Almost immediately John tries to push her away and reflexively, Helen tightens her grip. Her fingernails scratch a path across his skin, drawing a satisfying hiss of pain from his lips as he forcibly pulls away and meets her heated gaze with his own.

“Helen…”

John takes a faltering step back, his expression a pained mixture of bewilderment and regret. But the way his body is leaning imperceptibly towards hers, his eyes hungrily tracing her every curve, tells a different story. She knows instinctively that she’s pushed him the absolute limits of his control, and all it would take is one touch to bring him with her over the edge. And while she knows that the best thing either of them can do right now is put an immediate stop to this dangerous game, the simple fact is, Helen doesn’t want to.

Eyes never leaving his, Helen reaches out to trail her fingertips along the pressed placket of his shirt. Reaching the collar, she slips free one button, then the next, gradually revealing the pale expanse of his chest. Carefully she draws the fabric aside and leans in to place a single, open-mouthed kiss at the center of his torso. His body shudders beneath her touch, bringing a smile of satisfaction to her lips.

A slight darkening of his eyes is all the warning Helen receives before John pulls her roughly against him, retaking her mouth in a punishing kiss that holds no trace of the uncertainty he’d displayed only minutes earlier. He is wild, unrestrained; and Helen revels in the knowledge that is it she who has brought him – them – to this.

Taking his lower lip between her teeth, she reaches down to run her fingers over the length of him through his trousers, and feels his hands tighten possessively around her waist in response. He leans closer, lips moving insistently against hers as he propels them back into the shadows and pushes her up against the tower wall with enough force to break their embrace and knock the air from her lungs.

As Helen struggles to catch her breath, John reaches down to take her hands in his, bringing them to rest on either side of her head against the cold stone. She waits for him to resume his assault on her senses, but the anticipated attack never comes. Instead he pulls back slightly, pausing to consider her before slowly leaning in to drop a chase kiss on her forehead. He goes on to leave a trail of teasing, feather-light kisses along the curve of her jaw, each more maddening than the last and not nearly enough to satisfy her.

“Stop it,” she growls, moving to press her body against his. His ministrations immediately cease, and John draws back just far enough to be able to meet her gaze. Far from affectionate, the expression on his face is almost feral as he grins and dips his head to sink his teeth into the sensitive skin just above her collarbone.

This. _This_ is what she needed.

“Yes,” Helen hears herself sigh, her hands coming up to cradle his head. She feels the familiar buzz of static against her skin a moment before it happens, and by the time she’s opened her eyes, the dark shadows of the tower parapet have been replaced by the warm lamplight and familiar trappings of her bedroom. Helen barely has time to register the change in scenery before John’s mouth is once again on hers.

The rest is nothing but a blur of pure sensation; skin sliding against skin, lips and hands exploring, caressing, until her senses are completely overwhelmed and there is nothing left but the two of them together, like this.

It’s only after she’s caught her breath and the haze of contentment begins to fade that Helen begins to recognize the terrible enormity of what they have done.

Despite the warmth of the room and the body tucked up against hers, Helen shivers. She feels John’s arm, slung low around her hips, tighten in response, followed by the brush of his fingers against her bare shoulder as he leans in to place a kiss upon her temple. The gentle press of his lips on her skin is simply too much; involuntarily Helen shies away from the contact, ignoring the way his body tenses as she pulls away.

She can feel John’s eyes on her as they lay together in silence, knows he’s watching and waiting for her to give him some further clue as to what happens next. But Helen has no answers to give him. As much as she may want to simply slip back into his arms and lose herself in him again and again, she knows the notion is nothing more than a fantasy.

Helen Magnus has never been the type to stay lost for very long.

She is careful not to look back at him as she slips from the bed. Crossing the room, she retrieves her blouse from where it had been tossed to the floor and pulls it over her head, wincing slightly when her knuckles inadvertently graze the column of her throat. Even from a distance, the dark bruises John’s teeth have left on her skin are clearly visible in the nearby mirror, lurid marks of possession that are sickeningly reminiscent of the wounds he’d once inflicted on his Whitechapel whores.

But what truly terrifies Helen isn’t her injuries or how they were caused, but the spark of desire she feels as she runs her fingertips gingerly over the hurt.

In all the years she’d spent keeping John away, Helen had never considered the possibility that _she_ would be the one from whom they both would need protecting.

“Helen.”

Glancing up, Helen is surprised to find John standing only a few feet away, his unbuttoned trousers hanging low on his hips as he watches her with a subtle mixture of adoration, longing, and regret. For a brief moment, it’s as if they’ve stepped back in time. Transfixed, Helen watches in the mirror as John comes to stand behind her, wraps an arm about her waist and leans in to nuzzle the crown of blonde curls on her head. _For all eternity, Helen…_

She blinks once…twice and the memory is gone, John is still standing uncertainly on the far side of the room and she is before the mirror alone, a brittle, weary woman trapped in a nightmare of her own design.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Helen bows her head and closes her eyes. “Just…go. Please.”

She can sense his hesitation, and it’s all she can do to keep still as she waits for him to decide. It isn’t long before Helen hears the tell-tale sound of cloth sliding against skin, a zipper, the creak of leather as he dons his shoes. She feels the lightest brush of his lips against the crown of her head – and then nothing, save the momentary prickle of static electricity against her skin that tells her that John has – as always – done just as she’d asked of him.

 

*fin.*


End file.
